Part VI
In Reading gaol by Reading townThere is a pit of shame,And in it lies a wretched manEaten by teeth of flame,In a burning winding-sheet he lies,And his grave has got no name.
And there, till Christ call forth the dead,In silence let him lie:No need to waste the foolish tear,Or heave the windy sigh:The man had killed the thing he loved,And so he had to die.
And all men kill the thing they love,By all let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss,The brave man with a sword!
About this text
Part VI is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Project Gutenberg ebook #301; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Oscar Wilde, Part VI, in The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #301, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilde-reading-gaol/part-vi.html, id L07167.
Form and metre
Part VI is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A-A town · shameA · man · flameA · lies · nameA
- 2 -A-A-A dead · lieA · tear · sighA · loved · dieA
- 3 -A-A-- love · heardA · look · wordA · kiss · sword
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In Reading gaol by Reading town | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| There is a pit of shame, | 6 | ······ |
| And in it lies a wretched man | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Eaten by teeth of flame, | 6 | /˘···· |
| In a burning winding-sheet he lies, | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| And his grave has got no name. | 7 | ······· |
| And there, till Christ call forth the dead, | 8 | ········ |
| In silence let him lie: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| No need to waste the foolish tear, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Or heave the windy sigh: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The man had killed the thing he loved, | 8 | ········ |
| And so he had to die. | 6 | ······ |
| And all men kill the thing they love, | 8 | ········ |
| By all let this be heard, | 6 | ······ |
| Some do it with a bitter look, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Some with a flattering word, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The coward does it with a kiss, | 7 | ·/····· |
| The brave man with a sword! | 6 | ······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.